It seems kind of barebones, tbh. There's no actual story (at least, until where I am, though there seems to be something happening), you just wander through the map finding towns, searching for new weapons and vehicles / parts and hunting the occasional bounty. You can customize skills for your characters, but they come with a few unique ones so you can decide on which one you like most (example: mechanic guy can heal your tank, mechanic girl can paralyse enemy machines).
And you spend a lot of time on combat. It has a speed up function so you can zip through trash encounters, which is needed because there can be plenty of them (I think you can buy "repelents" to help with that). But it's very possible to die in those, and most of the time I am desperately looking for heal or more armor for the tanks. If I grind, I have to do it near towns so I can go back in case I get caught by surprise, or find some enemy which self-destructs / has outrageous attack. But it doesn't feel cheap.
You can use tanks and other vehicles for combat and moving on map. You can buy or find parts and weapons (primary, secondary and special ones, the shittier ones have unlimited ammo), and there are garages in towns where you can manage them. You can even rent some if you're low in money, but you have to pay a % of the gold you gain in each encouter. Some enemies are easily dispatched by vehicles, others make them p. much a necessity. You can also have some characters on foot and others in vehicles.
There seems to be plenty of weapons with interesting effects to keep things interesting. Stun batons, paralysing boomerang that hits entire row (but can heal enemies that absorb shock) rifles that hit everyone, pistol that hits one enemy, sword that hits only a single nearby enemy, but is strong, etc. I think I once had a chainsaw too. I am usually very happy when I find new armor / weapons, sometimes it's really needed (instead of just making grinding faster).
Quests consist of "go there and kill this monster / guy for money" and "lets preoceed to X area". Not much different than other jrpgs, though.
You get to choose most of your party (except main character who must be on party at all times), you have a role and some predetermined guys to fill it, but you can change anytime by talking to the one outside the party - so far, I've met "mechanic" and "dog" (four dogs to choose from, I prefer the healer one). I believe the cowgirl above counts as either "strong guy" or "shooter".
Overall, not much different than other jrpgs, but this one doesn't contain the usual bs stories I may not care about, so I'm enjoying it.
^^
